My Lords, I first declare an interest: I grew up in a children’s home, so I have a bit of knowledge about it. The system is broken. Not by the last Government: it has gradually been broken over 50 years since we got rid of children’s departments. My one criticism of this document, which is a very good step forward, is that it mentions virtually everything except talking to the children about what they want.
Secondly, as I have said before, you cannot devolve compassion. You have to get the private sector out of this business. There is no other way forward. When we had children’s departments, we had university departments backing them up; we had a profession devoted to children, not profit. Will the Minister go back to the department to see how she can get this service back into the public, municipal care that it thrived quite well under from the Curtis report of the 1940s to the Seebohm Rowntree changes in the early 1970s, which undid it because the Treasury got greedy?